There was notably a series of
studies made from the first platform of the Eiffel Tower, an
accumulation of wonders of perspectives framing scenes of such animation
and caprice as to take away one's breath.

Finally, Auguste Lepere appears as the Debucourt of our time. As
painter, pastellist and wood-engraver he has produced since 1870, and
has won for himself the first place among French engravers. It would be
difficult to recount the volumes, albums and covers on which the fancy
of his burin has played; but it is particularly in wood-engraving that
he stands without rival. Not only has he produced masterpieces of it,
but he has passionately devoted himself to raising this admirable art,
the glory of the beautiful books of olden days, and to give back to it
the lustre which had been eclipsed by mechanical processes. Lepere has
started some publications for this purpose; he has had pupils of great
merit, and he must be considered the master of the whole generation of
modern wood-engravers, just as Cheret is the undisputed master of the
poster. Lepere's ruling quality is strength. He seems to have
rediscovered the mediaeval limners' secrets of cutting the wood, giving
the necessary richness to the ink, creating a whole scale of half-tones,
and specially of adapting the design to typographic printing, and making
of it, so to say, an ornament and a decorative extension for the type.
Lepere is a wood-engraver with whom none of his contemporaries can be
compared; as regards his imagination, it is that of an altogether
curious artist. He excels in composing and expressing the life, the
animation, the soul of the streets and the picturesque side of the
populace. Herein he is much inspired by Manet and, if we go back to the
real tradition, by Guys, Debucourt, the younger Moreau and by Gabriel de
Saint-Aubin. He is decidedly a Realist of French lineage, who owes
nothing to the Academy and its formulas.

It would be evidently unreasonable to attach to Impressionism all that
is ante-academical, and between the two extremes there is room for a
crowd of interesting artists. We shall not succumb to the prejudice of
the School by declaring, in our turn, that there is no salvation outside
Impressionism, and we have been careful to state repeatedly that, if
Impressionism has a certain number of principles as kernel, its
applications and its influence have a radiation which it is difficult to
limit. What can be absolutely demonstrated is